Star-Crossed Victory

The Knickerbocker Circus was in town this evening and left with a hard-earned 111-103 loss to your Boston Celtics. This is the C's fifth straight win, and sends them into the All-Star break with a tidy 41-9 record. And speaking of All-Stars, Ray Allen was added to the Eastern Conference squad before tonight's game to replace the sublime-yet-injured Caron Butler. Congratulations, Ray! Ray hasn't had his biggest or best season thus far but he's played his role to near-perfection and clearly deserves a considerable share of the accolades for the team's almost otherwordly success.

Anyways, back to the game. I was actually on hand for this one and it was a pretty bizarre affair, one of those games where you have no idea what the score is and then look up and see that the C's are up by 23, even though you don't really remember them ever scoring consecutive baskets. This is the black hole you enter when you play the Knicks, apparently. The night's biggest event was probably Big Baby Davis hitting the floor hard and staying down for a frighteningly long time before being helped off the court. Those of us in the stands were sure it was a torn ACL or something comparably awful but apparently it's just a strained quad or something. Brian Scalabrine also suffered a groin pull but was not missed because he sucks at basketball. The C's played a well-balanced, hopelessly sloppy game to send the Knicks to their 37th loss in 52 tries. Oh, and Isiah got ejected. Paul Pierce led the charge with 24 points and Leon Powe came up huge again with 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting and 8 boards. This kid's the real thing, I tell ya.

The All-Star break will be good for this team: guys like KG and Baby will get some added rest, and all in all the team has a lot to feel good about over the next six days or so. Next week kicks off an intense 5-game Western swing, so get ready to stay up late (Wednesday at Golden State is a 10:30 start). Also, we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that it seems our previous post was in haste... Devean George has decided to void the vaunted Kidd-to-Mavs trade in a rather stunning fuck-you to pretty much everyone and anyone who isn't Devean George. I say good for him. In any event, we'll see what happens. Enjoy the All-Star Game.